“Yes, sir,” she said, glumly. “I couldn't think of anything I haven't already said. I just can't imagine what has happened to Mr. Sam.'
He couldn't think what to say, so he just shook his head by way of commiseration. Royce wondered who'd look for him if he disappeared.
Mary Perkins was working her way back down North Main with the handbills. She went in Judy's, the town's most popular cafe, and spotted a woman she knew.
“Hi, Francie.'
“Howdy, Mary,” a heavyset woman said from behind the cash register, a look of condolence immediately wrinkling her plump, friendly features with concern. “It's awful about Sam. Have you heard any news?'
“No.” Mary showed the woman a stack of pages she'd just run off across the street at the bank. “Would you all mind handing these out for me?” They were reward announcements that showed Sam's photograph, followed by a photocopy of the account of his disappearance that had run in the
“Of course not. I'll make sure they get handed out myself,” Francie assured her, glad to help. “I sure hope Sam's okay.” She had clearly written him off.
Mary thanked her and left, working her way on down North Main. She, too, had a very bad feeling now. She'd already caught herself several times as she spoke of her husband in the past tense. Too much time had gone by.
She worked her way down the block, leaving more of the reward handbills at General Discount, the doctor's office, and O'Connor GMC Motors. She'd parked their car on Maple, and she went back to rest a minute and regroup. The plan was to get more posters and work her way on out South Main. She unlocked the car, got in, and looked at Sam's likeness from a recent photo.
REWARD
A substantial cash reward will be paid to anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Sam Perkins, 33, of 911 South Main in Waterton, who has been missing since the morning of Friday, October 5, when he was believed to have been abducted from the parking lot of Perkins Realty.
Anyone having information as to his disappearance or his present whereabouts should contact Martin W. Kerns, Chief of Police, Waterton Office of Public Safety, 555-9191 or 555-3017.
Mary's own number had been added to the newspaper account. She only just now noticed that the pasteup had not been trimmed of all its extraneous information. There was a filler line that the paper had run across the bottom, and she'd left it on. In tiny print at the bottom of the announcement it read:
“Support the Maysburg Eagles!'
Mary forced herself into action and started the car, pulling around the corner and parking halfway down the block. She gathered up a big armful of handbills and went in the first building down at the corner, Wilma's Hair Salon.
Kristi Devere was cutting someone's hair, and there was another lady under a dryer. Mary couldn't place the woman she was working on, but the woman acted like she knew Mary. She asked Kristi if she could leave some of the posters of Sam, and was turning to leave when the woman said, in a well-meaning tone, “I know exactly what you're going through, dear.'
“Oh.” She had no idea who the woman was. A pleasant-looking bottle blonde of mysterious years, but clearly on the high side of middle age.
“I lost my Stanley and I didn't think I was ever going to get over it. Thirty-five years.” Kristi stopped and looked at her customer. “It's terrible to have a husband killed.'
“Nobody knows that, Clarisse,” Kristi said gently.
“Of course they don't. But you know, if your husband gets Alzheimer's or something, and he's elderly, or in bad health, or he has a stroke—you know—” She needed to talk about it.
“Sure.” Mary wanted to get moving. Clarisse? Not Clarisse Pendleton? Must be. She vaguely remembered her husband had been killed in a car accident. A drunk driver.
“We had our kids grown and out of the house. Doing well. Our grandchildren were healthy. We had our financial situation—you know—comfortable. I mean, we weren't wealthy...” Huge diamonds flashed on an expressive, wrinkled hand.
“Mm-hm.'
“I couldn't go in a room in the house without seeing something of Stanley's. I finally had to just box up everything and have Goodwill get it. All his beautiful suits. I couldn't stand it. I cried every time I came in the house. I couldn't fix a meal. I'd open the refrigerator and just break down. I'd find some little note or something in one of my purses. My heart broke ten times a day. You know—you lose someone to cancer, it's awful. But everyone loses loved ones to heart disease, cancer, things like that. To have something like this—'
“Bye bye, Mary,” Kristi said. “Good luck, hon.” Giving her a chance to thank them both and quickly start out the door.
“Holidays are the worst—” she could hear the woman call out to her back as the door mercifully closed.
10
“Magic Silo. Crossing plowed ground to barnyard. Repeat. Magic Silo. Crossing plowed ground to barnyard.” The words register deep in the lion's brain salad. A radio spits noise.
“That's a rog, Charlie Charlie November. Magic Silo out.” Trying to fight his way out of the haze of tranqs. Wordscreen wrestles for information. Sorts through call signs: Wicked Trade. Mad Rover. Mud Puppy. Magic Silo does not connect.
Sees the steel. Chains. Feels the cold. Senses loss of equilibrium. Turbulence of some kind. Perhaps he is in Vietnam, on the way to an unknown LZ with the call sign Magic Silo. A bumpy ride, in this UH-1. The slick shudders in a loud eggbeater machine-gun flatulence of turbine whomp. But if this is a bird, where is the cocky pilot? The absentee door gunner? The copilot? No arrogant crew chief speaks. He replays a night insertion: unmarked skinships approaching LZ Quebec-Tulsa, filed as LZ: field expedient.
His body shrugs through layers of fog. Tests the chains reflexively. He is immobilized, but he can hear a radio and a single voice. If the pilot is tantalizingly alone, this is golden data—a neck snaps like rotten wood in his memory and he wants to smile, but the huge face is frozen.
There is the ruck. He realizes he must be hallucinating. His duffel and weapons case! A rush of joy surges through his bloodstream.
Daniel Bunkowski is loaded for bear. A backbreaking ruck, X'ed bandoliers of ammo, det cord, wire, and assorted gear for his precious “pies,” streaming blast-furnace sweat and killer karma, death out the bazonga.
“Chaingang” he is called—out of earshot—existing nowhere on paper, core name-taker for USMACVSAUCOG, a ghost unit created in the pages of an NSC “action memorandum” to the Joint Chiefs, a “NONSKID JACKS” in jargonspeak: the verbalization of
It was sanctioned by a few words found amid the verbiage of the National Security Act, which mandated an outfit of its type to perform “such functions and duties affecting the national security as the National Security Council may direct.'
The benign-sounding tongue twister of an acronym was said to stand for the
